The first photos are now available online from the Above and Below Image Library that Sue and I have set up.  The launch page for the library is here, and you can see a sample of the photos we offer and how the system will work here.  Please let us know what you think!

I'm pleased to help publicise the wonderful flora and scenery of the Cairngorms Mountains of Scotland in a feature article in the winter 2009 issue of Plantlife, the membership magazine of the charity Plantlife International.  The magazine has had a recent redesign, and is now a very high quality publication indeed, that does Plantlife huge credit (even if I am biassed as a founder member!)

I'm delighted to have been invited to join Saga Ruby on the first leg of her round-the-world cruise, leaving Southampton on Thursday January 7th 2010.  I'll be sailing with her as far as Callao, for Lima in Peru on Thursday January 28th, with ten lectures and lots of whale and birdwatching with passengers en route.

Her ports of call are Ponta Delgada in the Azores; St Johns in Antigua; Willemstad in Curacao; San Andres, north-west of the Columbian coast; Puerto Limon in Costa Rica; a transit through the Panama Canal; Manta in Ecuador; Salaverry in Peru and then Callao.

As with the cruises below, I'd love to see friends and acquaintances from past cruises on board.  Further information is available from the Saga Ruby website here.

We now have our first bookings as cruise lecturers for 2010, and we would love to see old friends and acquaintances on any of these trips.

I will be doing a solo job on the first of these to the Canary Islands, departing from Liverpool on 23rd March, as Sue will still be on Tristan da Cunha.  The cruise for Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, on board Boudicca, stops at Leixoes (the port for Oporto) in Portugal, Funchal on Madeira, La Palma, Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Casablanca in Africa. Details of cruise D1005 are available here.

Next we'll both be together on Boudicca for Fred.Olsen again, on another Canary Island cruise, this time conveniently from Greenock. Ports of call are Leixoes again, Lanzerote, Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma, Madeira and Vigo in Spain.  There's more about this cruise, D1011, here.

Finally, although have not yet been formally contracted, we look forward to a wonderful cruise around the Norwegian fjords, the Faeroes, Iceland, then on to Greenland, on board Discovery for Voyages of Discovery, which sails from Harwich on 29th July 2010. Details of the Grand Norway, Iceland and Greenland cruise are here, and it's also possible to book just for the Harwick to Iceland leg, or the Iceland - Greenland -Harwich leg.

If you want any more guidance on any of these cruises, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

I was commissioned by British Wildlife magazine to review the likely impact of climate change on the Cairngorms mountains of Scotland.  I thought I knew what this was likely to say, but, as I spoke to the relevant experts, it became clear that the likely reality was very different from a lot of the hyperbole in the press.

The resulting article, Climate Change and the high Cairngorms: reality and hyperbole appears in the August 2009 issue of British Wildlife (pages 389–397).  To subscribe or for back issues, go here.

My "Scottish Wild Flowers" book has now gone out of print again, much more quickly than Harper-Collins expected.  You would think that would be good news, but they aren't considering a reprint as yet, although I guess that's understandable in the present economic circumstances.  Another publisher is keen to take on the title, so we will see what transpires.

I guess it needs lots of bookshops to contact Collins to request more copies (hint, hint to any bookshops out there ;-) ).

Meanwhile, there are a couple of possible other book titles in prospect, again, I suspect, depending on how publishers see the economic future.  Watch this space!